Table of Contents

British Crime Survey, 1982 (ICPSR 8672)

Principal Investigator(s):
Home Office Research and Planning Unit

Summary:

The primary purpose of the British Crime Survey was to
estimate how many of the public in England and Wales are victims of
selected types of crime over a year, describing the circumstances under
which people become victims, and the consequences of crime for victims.
Other aims included providing background information on fear of crime
among the public and on public contact with the police. Respondents
were asked a series of screening questions to establish whether or not
they or their households had been victims of relevant crimes during the
one-year reference period. They were then asked a series of very
detailed questions about the incidents they reported. Basic descriptive
background information on respondents and their households was
collected to allow analysis of the sorts of people who do and do not
become victims. Information was also collected on other areas which
were of intrinsic interest and which could usefully be related to
experience as a victim, namely, fear of crime, contact with the police,
lifestyle, and self-reported offending.

The primary purpose of the British Crime Survey was to
estimate how many of the public in England and Wales are victims of
selected types of crime over a year, describing the circumstances under
which people become victims, and the consequences of crime for victims.
Other aims included providing background information on fear of crime
among the public and on public contact with the police. Respondents
were asked a series of screening questions to establish whether or not
they or their households had been victims of relevant crimes during the
one-year reference period. They were then asked a series of very
detailed questions about the incidents they reported. Basic descriptive
background information on respondents and their households was
collected to allow analysis of the sorts of people who do and do not
become victims. Information was also collected on other areas which
were of intrinsic interest and which could usefully be related to
experience as a victim, namely, fear of crime, contact with the police,
lifestyle, and self-reported offending.

Study Description

Citation

Home Office Research and Planning Unit. British Crime Survey, 1982. ICPSR08672-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1987. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR08672.v1

Universe:
People aged 16 and over living in private households in
England and Wales and whose addresses appear in the electoral
registers.

Data Type(s):
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

This collection offers three distinct representations
of British Crime Survey data. They are Parts 1-3, Part 4, and Part 5.
Part 1 consists of data captured on the Main Questionnaire. Part 2
represents data from the Victim Form. Part 3 consists of data collected
via the Followup Questionnaire. Parts 1-3 are documented with SPSS
Control Cards and the nonnumeric codes "-1" and "-2" are used to
represent missing data. Part 4 is a hierarchically structured file
consisting of 5 cards per resondent containing data from the Main
Questionnaire (approx. 188 variables), followed by 5 cards per Victim
Form (approx. 290 variables) for up to four Victim Forms per
respondent, followed by 5 cards containing data from the Followup
Questionnaire (approx. 230 variables). Only respondents reporting
incidents of victimization have Victim Forms. The Followup
Questionnaire was administered to all respondents reporting incidents
of victimization and to 2 in 5 other respondents. Part 5 is identical
to Part 4 except that it has been "padded" by inserting blank cards
so that there are thirty 80-column cards for each respondent. The
codebook describes Parts 4 and 5 only. Hardcopy documentation describes
interviews with 5,031 people in Scotland, however, data for Scotland
are not included in this dataset.

Methodology

Sample:
Multistage probability sample using electoral registers as
the frame.

Data Source:

personal interviews

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release: 1987-05-19

Version History:

2006-01-18 File CB8672.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

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